


A Need for a Heroine

by bionically



Series: Unlikely Heroes [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Neville is tortured, Non Graphic, Pansy shows a soft spot, References to Animal Abuse, almost nonexistent, it's very deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22838917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bionically/pseuds/bionically
Summary: Pansy never saw a need to become a heroine until now.#TeamAphrodite #LF2020
Relationships: Neville Longbottom/Pansy Parkinson
Series: Unlikely Heroes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637329
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41
Collections: Love Fest 2020





	A Need for a Heroine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LuxLouise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuxLouise/gifts).



> Again, thanks to my untiring beta, disenchantedglow, for reading almost everything I did in this fest.
> 
> Part III of the Heroes series.

Pansy didn't consider herself a hero at all. She didn't want to be one. It was the perfect way to become a target, and Pansy was not a target.

Except for that time when they were all targets in seventh year.

On the surface, it seemed as though the Carrows favoured the Slytherins, but that was for show only. The Carrows expected _more_ out of them.

"Things seem to be falling apart since the days when we were here, Lettie," Amycus Carrow would say to his sister, clacking his creepy wooden teeth against one another. It always reminded Pansy of a puppet, one that was neither fully alive nor fully dead.

Besides the startling fact that the hollow-cheeked, skeletal woman was nicknamed so cheerily as Lettie, there was the scarily apparent fact that these two had been sorted into Slytherin.

"Indeed, Ames," Alecto said, slapping her wand against the palm of her hand as though it were a whipping rod. "The will is strong, but the flesh is weak. But never fear, we shall make soldiers of you all."

There was apparently a trick to the Crucio curse. One didn't just start off being able to torture real humans. 

"There should always be a process to these things, don't you agree, Ames?"

"Certainly, Lettie," Amycus said, as though they were two parts of a comedic duo, speaking of humorous things rather than the tricks behind torture and mayhem.

It seemed strangely appropriate when, on the heels of their conversation, a krup emerged from the corner of the Common Room. It was tan and white and looked so soft that most of the students suddenly perked up, sensing a change in the usual nighttime tutorial sessions in Slytherin house. There was a soft "aw" from the back of the room and a rustling of movement, as though people were fighting not to crowd closer.

Even Alecto seemed oddly moved by the animal, at first toeing at it with the tip of her pointy boot, before crouching down to lift it up. 

The krup could not have been more than a few weeks old. It was small and would shiver from time to time and seemed to have a hard time keeping its eyes completely open. Its muzzle continually nosed around for food, even going so far as to dig at Alecto's bony bosom.

The same thought occurred to someone in the back. "It's hungry," came a carrying shout.

Alecto's face came up, her pupils like pinpricks in the colourless irises of her eyes. She looked excited, as though the student had said something that pleased her. "Yes, and do we always give animals what they want?"

That was when Pansy had a very, very bad feeling. She couldn't hear over the roaring in her ears, and she didn't even feel it when Daphne's hands dug into her forearm deep enough to leave bruises the next day. All her energy was focused on not passing out.

Needless to say, after that day, no one in Slytherin needed a second demonstration of how useless animals were, and how Muggleborns were just like krups.

* * *

It seemed as though Neville Longbottom couldn't get enough of being tortured that year. There were times when Pansy had a hard time looking at him without thinking of that krup.

Most times, she successfully went through her day by rote without giving him one thought. His name, though, was whispered everywhere. 

“Did you see how Neville stood up for Penny today?” Pansy heard on a loud carrying whisper as she strode through the halls.

“Shh!” came the response. Pansy acted as though the _very obvious_ pointed looks at her were normal. 

“I don’t care who hears. He’s a hero. I want to marry someone just like him when I grow up.”

Pansy rolled her eyes and continued on down the hall. Marry someone like Neville Longbottom, the self-proclaimed martyr? Just thinking of his masochistic tendencies made her want to slap him across the face.

She walked into Potions before the rest of the class and began to peer under all the tables. Two weeks ago, _Professor_ Carrow—Pansy’s lips twisted at that title—had caught a small mouse in the corner of the room. Pansy hated rodents, but she also found that seeing the new potions professor take such glee cutting the tail off a still wriggling rodent was too much for her. 

Pansy opened and shut all the doors to the potions drawers, giving each of them a good rattle to scare away any living creatures still brave enough to be crawling around in this hellhole. 

When she turned around to walk back to her seat, she stopped short at the sight of Neville Longbottom at his table, watching her silently.

She forced herself to start moving again. This time, she detoured over to the teacher’s table and trailed a finger over it, as though she did this all the time, touching everything in this room like it belonged to her. She repressed a shudder as she came across a jar of dead bumblebee bats, abruptly jerking back her hand.

She hated the Carrows so much. They were ruining everything that had been slightly entertaining about education.

Longbottom spoke suddenly. “Your mentee is Lavender’s sister, right? The Hufflepuff girl in third year. Pansy Brown.” His voice sounded much too loud in the empty room.

Pansy swung her eyes over to regard Neville with a flat-eyed look. “What of it, Longbottom?”

“She’s—in the infirmary,” he said. “Ran afoul of the Carrows on the pitch. I, er, happened to see from the herbology classroom. Ran out to see what I could do.”

Something inside Pansy froze, and she pinched the inside of her upper arm under the guise of straightening her sleeves—the only outward sign of a reaction she would allow herself. “I see,” she said slowly. “Is she alright?”

“She’s fine,” he said, and when she continued to give him her dead-eyed stare, he nodded. “Really. She’s fine.” 

As she watched, a bead of dark red formed right under one of his nostrils. It was almost black and shiny, and it began to form into a line as it lengthened into a trickle.

He seemed to notice her attention to the middle of his face, and his hand came up to touch his nose. There was an almost imperceptible tremor to his fingers as they dabbed at his upper lip. He looked down at his hand, at the smear of blood, now lighter in colour on the pads of his fingers. “Shit,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened, not at all. Stupid Longbottom with his stupid heroism had probably seen the Carrows having their usual fun with the torture spell and flew in to intervene. Without a care for his own physical state. Just look at him. He was disgusting.

Pansy walked right by his table, jolting the next chair enough that there was a clatter, and then swerved left to walk over to her seat.

There was a fumbling sound as Neville rifled in his pack for tissues, presumably. It seemed to take him ages. She rolled her eyes again. Bloody predictable. Men _never_ had tissues on them. Ever.

“There’s tissue paper right next to your chair on the floor, you dolt,” she said in her most acidic voice. “Perhaps you didn’t see that you dropped it?”

She watched from the sides of her eyes as he pinched one side of his nostrils with a finger and glanced downwards. “Ah,” he said, and leaned over to pick it up. “This is—isn’t this yours, Parkinson?”

Pansy made a scoffing sound and tossed her hair. “Do I _look_ as though I drop things on accident, Longbottom?”

He picked up the handkerchief and turned it over in his clean hand. His other hand was still held up to his nose and his head was tilted back. She could see the sharp angle of his jaw and chin where there used to be nothing but chub. _Crucio_ , she thought, her lips twisting. _The world’s most painful diet._

“You might as well use it,” she said in her most offhand tone. “It probably doesn’t belong to anyone important.”

“It’s monogrammed,” he said, and he actually turned it over to check before awkwardly folding it with one hand. While he was holding back his bleeding nose with the other. Merlin. He was probably going to take it to the Lost and Found, dripping blood the entire way. “It would be rude—”

“For fuck’s sake, Longbottom, just use the bloody thing!” she exploded. “I can’t stand to see your stupid bleeding face anymore. Also, it happens to be self-cleaning. Something you should invest in, perhaps, if you plan to be tortured all term?”

She heard his hesitation before need won out and he began to staunch his nose with the handkerchief. The red dotted the handkerchief before disappearing, leaving the cloth as pristinely white and dry as before. “Thanks,” he said in a softer, more subdued tone. “Parkinson, I mean—”

She tore her eyes away, refusing to let herself wonder if he was getting treatment for all the torture he was undergoing this year. He was a giant idiot, and she had no time for idiots. At least the handkerchief was imbued with a slight soothing charm—not enough to heal, but just enough to make things a _little_ better. “Whatever,” she said, stopping him with a wave of her hand. “Consider that repayment for Pansy Brown.”

“Ah,” he said. “I’ll—return it, or replace it. If you’ll just tell me where—”

She rolled her eyes. “Keep it,” she said. “I’m not likely to want something that’s been tainted by your grubby hands. I mean, do you even _wash_ your hands after Herbology?”

He chuckled. She saw him glance down at his fingernails. “I was—I was in a hurry to get to her, I suppose. Didn’t—didn’t cast the cleansing charm right.” She saw the slight shake of his hand that belied that lie. It was more likely that his hands hadn’t been steady enough to cast anything useful.

“Longbottom, you have a death wish,” she said, for once not sounding like her usual acerbic self. “Do you know what that many _crucios_ can do to you?”

“I do know,” he said, and a note of steel entered his voice. It was as unlike him as anything she had ever known, and it made her look at him, _really_ look fully on him, evaluating him. 

It was as though she had never seen him before, a young man who had grown up overnight. It had been only last year when she had last seen him as an awkward, still slightly overweight boy who had shot up too fast to be graceful on his feet. Now, he had become someone else, someone forced to grow up under a regime of terror. She had seen him tortured tens of times since the beginning of term, and not once had he ever pleaded for it to stop. It was as though he was under some inner directive to suffer as much as possible.

“It doesn’t always have to be you,” Pansy said. “Torture is so messy and unattractive, and you look like an idiot writhing on the floor.” Her words were fairly idiotic themselves, and when something flickered in his eyes, she almost regretted having said anything. Was that look in his eyes disappointment? Why should she even care about disappointing someone like him, who she had always treated as a joke?

“I know,” he said in a tone so quiet she could hear the voices outside the room, echoing through the corridors; some drawing closer, some fading away. “But someone has to. And if no one can do it, I’ll just have to do it myself.”

Pansy gave up trying to give him advice. He was so frustratingly, unrelentingly _Gryffindor_ in nature. Didn’t he realise there were better ways around heroism? That subterfuge worked just as well?

He probably didn’t realise it, the idiot, and she would have to take matters into her own hands. 

Otherwise, she was certain that in the next month, he’d be as dead as that defenseless krup.

Pansy heaved a heavy sigh. She had to do everything herself.


End file.
